Xbox One vs PS4 specs, according to Microsoft

With the next-gen consoles incoming it’s inevitable that the Xbox One and Playstation 4 specs will be measured up against one another, and Microsoft itself has done so in a less formal fashion.

Writing on NeoGAF forums, Microsoft director of product planning Albert Penello wanted to clear up some of his statements about the power of the Xbox One, and explained further what he meant regarding the hardware in the next-gen consoles.

“I see my statements the other day caused more of a stir than I had intended,” said Penello. “I was hoping my comments would lead the discussion to be more about the games (and the fact that games on both systems look great) as a sign of my point about performance, but unfortunately I saw more discussion of my credibility.

“I do want to be super clear: I’m not disparaging Sony. I’m not trying to diminish them, or their launch or what they have said. But I do need to draw comparisons since I am trying to explain that the way people are calculating the differences between the two machines isn’t completely accurate. I think I’ve been upfront I have nothing but respect for those guys, but I’m not a fan of the mis-information about our performance.”

Penello then listed some of the key points about some of the consoles’ specific parts “to consider”:

“18 CU’s vs. 12 CU’s =/= 50% more performance. Multi-core processors have inherent inefficiency with more CU’s, so it’s simply incorrect to say 50% more GPU.
Adding to that, each of our CU’s is running 6% faster. It’s not simply a 6% clock speed increase overall.
We have more memory bandwidth. 176gb/sec is peak on paper for GDDR5. Our peak on paper is 272gb/sec. (68gb/sec DDR3 + 204gb/sec on ESRAM). ESRAM can do read/write cycles simultaneously so I see this number mis-quoted.
We have at least 10% more CPU. Not only a faster processor, but a better audio chip also offloading CPU cycles.
We understand GPGPU and its importance very well. Microsoft invented Direct Compute, and have been using GPGPU in a shipping product since 2010 – it’s called Kinect.
Speaking of GPGPU – we have 3X the coherent bandwidth for GPGPU at 30gb/sec which significantly improves our ability for the CPU to efficiently read data generated by the GPU.”

“Hopefully with some of those more specific points people will understand where we have reduced bottlenecks in the system. I’m sure this will get debated endlessly but at least you can see I’m backing up my points,” concluded Penello.

Microsoft’s Xbox One is on track to launch in thirteen countries around the world (22 November in the UK) and will be debuting at a price of $499 in the US and Canada. PlayStation 4 will release on 29 November in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and 15 November in the US and Canada.